Quaranteam - North West Ch. 22

Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for my feelings towards Miriam, none of the women coming onto site were newly imprinted - they'd been partnered up back in the aftermath of the outbreak on the site, and had been living with their partners in hotels and motels since then. That meant that Miriam wasn't ignoring my request for help, but it also meant she still didn't have the vaccine doses that would be needed.

In between my murderboarding and the occasional trips around the site, ostensibly to check on security but mostly to stay up to date on how the roads were working out, I found myself on the phone a lot. I spoke with Erica a few times a day, usually a couple for only a few minutes, but for at least an hour each afternoon. The initial excitement about our future child was still there, but all of the other little worries and anxieties were starting to set in, and we had a lot to talk about.

I also got daily calls from Kara as she updated me that she and the ladies were safe, and of what they could tell was going on on the Rez without leaving the house. Things had gotten worse - people were still dying, but there were less of them wandering the streets. They'd had a couple of people come by begging for help, but it was obvious they were on their last legs. She'd risked a bit of time outside to splash some bloody handprints off of the front windows of her house with a bucket from a distance.

We also talked. Not about big things, but just reminiscing about high school. Telling each other stories we remembered of the people we'd been back then. Of the silly adventures we'd had, and how important they'd seemed back then. I told her about running into Mary and her kids and helping her out. She told me how she'd been invited to Stacey Duncan's wedding almost a decade ago - the two had hated each other in high school, so the invite had been out of nowhere. She'd gone, more out of curiosity than anything, and Stacey had acted like they'd been the best of friends.

She told me about college, and how she thought I would have loved it, and asked me about the military. I told her my funny stories, and promised to tell her some of the harder ones when we could hug each other.

Gerty asked to talk to me on the third day as well just so she could interact with someone else for a bit. We traded stories about Kara that had her laughing and yelling in the background. Then Gerty walked away from the others and asked me about how things really looked outside the Rez. I didn't hold back, respecting that she'd been a Rez cop, and told her about the looters and the black market and the deaths. She admitted she was worried, and I did my best to console her as she broke down a little on the phone with me, not wanting to show anything but a smiling face to Tanaya and Kara. Once we were back onto happier, lighter things I told her that I'd be happy to talk to her again any time she wanted, and that one of these days I'd need her to give me some Policing tips. That got me a laugh, which was warm and rich.

The afternoon of that third day, frustrated with the murder board and receipt trail, I got dressed up, borrowed the unmarked truck from the site motor pool again and drove down to the Golden Beaver. Nothing useful came out of it beyond having a reason to fuck my girls, at least for the short term, but I needed to maintain my 'cover' and put in time with the sovereign citizens if I was going to have a chance at using them to leapfrog up the unofficial cell structure their loose organization used. There were fewer people there this time, and I wondered if the virus was catching up with them.

If it did before I made contact with whatever their militant arm was, they would be a literal dead end.

I couldn't help myself and texted that one to Greerson with almost no context, but he seemed to appreciate the pun when he replied almost ten hours later.

It was on the fourth day, still relatively early in the morning, that I picked up a call from Erica.

"Hello, wifey," I said, already smiling as I stood up from where I'd been sitting and sorting through emails.

"Hey, Harri," Erica said, the tone in her voice immediately making my smile slip.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Immediately my mind was jumping to worst-case scenarios, and now there was only really one - something was wrong with the baby.

"It's not an emergency," Erica said quickly, hearing my immediate tenseness. "You just need to come out here, sooner than later."

"OK, I'm on my way," I said, starting to cover up my murder board with the tarp I used to keep any rain off of it. With so little room in the RVs, I'd set it up by epoxying some corkboard to the side of one of the shipping containers that formed our compound walls. Vanessa had helped me hook up the tarp with some rope so I could cover it without much effort. It was janky but it worked, and I figured once the investigation was complete we could use it for more entertaining activities. "What's up?"

"Josie just got word she lost a friend, and she's taking it really hard," Erica said. "Everyone is trying to comfort her, but it's not helping. I think she needs a calming male presence."

"Erica," I said. "I don't think-"

"I'm not asking you to fuck her, babe," Erica said. "Just be there for a friend."

"OK," I agreed.

It didn't take me long to get there, and Kyla met me in the parking lot with a quick kiss. She gave me the fast rundown - Josie hadn't been able to get ahold of an old friend for a while now, and she got a call from another friend confirming he had passed from the virus a few weeks ago. Josie had broken down, and no one had been able to get through to her as she locked herself in her room. That had been early in the morning, and it was already the middle of the afternoon, and the ladies were getting worried.

"I think Josie isn't used to being vulnerable," Kyla said quietly, and I could tell she was speaking more from her training as a spy as she analysed the situation. "At least with women. Based on her background, and her mannerisms, she's friendly and joking with other women but doesn't let them in. I would bet there was bullying and mean-girl shit in her background, and falling into a male-dominated sport like wrestling was a comfort."

"Have I mentioned lately how much you amaze me?" I asked Kyla, which brought out a smile. I hugged her and kissed the top of her head.

Inside, several women said hello and asked me quick questions in passing, but everyone seemed to know why I was there. Ivy, when she saw me, leapt into my arms for a big public kiss before sending me in the direction of the stairs. Leo stopped me briefly, looking frustrated that he wasn't able to help. We hugged each other tightly, the silent message that we were glad that we were safe passing between us. I wasn't sure what I would do if I lost him, or if I'd be in any better a state than Josie sounded like she was in.

At the top of the stairs, I almost collided with Spencer as she was rushing to head down in the opposite direction. She flushed immediately, but her smile was big as she gave me a hug and - since I was a couple of steps lower than her - she took the opportunity to give me a kiss on the cheek. After an assurance that I wouldn't leave without checking in on her before I left again, she shooed me up into the hall.

Abi and Erica were talking quietly in the doorway to Erica and Ivy's room, clearly keeping an eye and an ear on Josie's room one door down the hall. Erica immediately stepped into my arms, hugging me tightly and kissing me. "Thanks for being quick," she said.

"Of course," I said.

Then Abi surprised me by hugging me as well. We'd had little hugs before, but this one was a full-armed one. It felt a little strange, being hugged like that by a woman who was an inch taller than me. Her grip was strong, but I still felt all the physical markers of hugging a woman. "Thank you," she said as we hugged.

"You alright?" I asked as I hugged her back, matching her firmness.

She nodded. "We've all been receiving bad news here or there, and helping each other through it. Focusing on workouts was also helping, that's why all the ladies have been so dedicated even if the world is falling apart. Your family has helped since they arrived, and the classes have been good for mental health."

"I'm glad," I said. "I wish I could do more."

She smiled sadly, pulling back from me and shaking her head, then glancing at Erica with a little smirk.

"What?" I asked.

"She said you would feel that way," Abi sighed. Then she surprised me again by giving me a peck on the lips. It was friendly, not romantic. "You do more than enough, Harrison."

I just sighed, and she hugged me again before pulling away. "So what's the latest?"

"She's still locked in her room, and tells people to leave her alone," Erica said. "She's isolating herself, and that's not good right now."

"Alright," I said, keeping in mind what Kyla had said. "I'll see what I can do."

I went to Josie's door and waited one beat before I knocked firmly.

"Go away," Josie called from inside.

"Open the door, Joss," I said firmly. "It's me."

There wasn't an answer.

"I'm coming through this door whether you open it or not," I said.

There was movement on the other side of the door, and then it opened. Josie looked a little pitiful. Her eyes were red and puffy, and her cheeks were streaked with tears. Her hair was wild, and she was just wearing a basic bra and panties.

I stepped into the doorway and wrapped my arms around her, and she immediately started sobbing as she buried her face in my chest and clung to me. Shifting us a little, I let the door close behind me, and I just held her there in the dark as she cried. After a few minutes like that, when her tears softened, I hefted her up and held her with one hand on her ass and one on her back as she wrapped her limbs around me, clinging so tight it was almost painful. I walked us deeper into the room and found her bed, kicking off my boots before laying us both down on it and encouraging her to shift until I was spooned behind her and she was hugging my arms to her stomach and chest.

She cried again, burying her face in the pillow as I held her.

For a woman with such a ready smile, flirt or joke, I was shocked at how deep her sorrow could reach.

"He was my person," Josie finally said, panting a little as her body tried to come back from the exertion of her sobbing.

"Boyfriend?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not since high school. Not really. He was my best friend. We tried dating a couple of times, but it was always awkward and we ended up friends who fooled around once in a while if we got extra tipsy and horny. But I loved him. We met at wrestling camp the summer before our junior years. After high school we went to the same wrestling school, and we worked the same promotions. He was the only person in my life from back home who got it, who understood why I did it."

"He sounds like he was really special," I said softly.

"He was," Josie sobbed softly. "Chris was... he was a light. No matter what was happening, or where we went, I knew he was on my side. We didn't work as a couple, but that didn't mean I didn't need him or love him."

"I'm sorry," I said, hugging her tighter.

"God, I'm such a mess," she said, wiping at her face. "I'm being such a little bitch."

"Shhh," I shushed her. "Say that again and I'll piledrive you into this mattress."

She snorted and gave one little chuckle, and then we let the silence and the darkness in her bedroom settle as I held her.

She told me more about Chris. About her earliest years of wrestling, and the two of them struggling to make ends meet after high school as they tried to find a way to break into the business. She told me about the little things he liked, his favourite foods and how he would make cinnamon buns on his cheat days. She showed me pictures of them on her phone, both casual and professional. Clips of him wrestling. Clips of him when he'd done a six-month stint being her ring-side 'manager.' Even clips of when they had an in-ring feud at one small promotion and he slammed her through a table with a frog splash from the top turnbuckle, followed by her smashing him with a barbed-wire-covered baseball bat.

"You loved him," I assured her. "He knew it."

"But I should have done more..." she gasped pitifully.

I comforted her, trying not to consider how much those words haunted me. And how much I didn't want them to haunt me in the future.

It must have been two hours since I'd gotten to the Falls that Josie sat up, taking a deep breath and rolling her shoulders and then her neck. She turned in the dark and laid back down, but this time she was cuddling against me. "Erica said blowjobs don't count," she whispered as her hands started to feel around my belt.

"Joss," I said quietly, stopping her hands with mine and pulling them away. "I can't tell you how much it would thrill me to fool around with you, or even more, but we can be close without being sexual. The first time we do something... alone, like this, I don't want it to be because of something like this. I don't want you to have any regrets."

She pressed her forehead to my chest, breathing deeply. And then her stomach grumbled loudly, making both of us chuckle.

"Hungry?" I asked.

"I didn't even eat breakfast," she said, then took another long breath and shifted up the bed a bit. "Can I at least kiss you?"

"I think that would be OK," I said.

We kissed, tenderly, in the dark for a few minutes before her stomach grumbled again. That made me smile and I sat up, manhandling her a little as I got her on her back and I leaned over to kiss her bare stomach. Her abs were firm against my lips, and a part of me wanted to just do it. To give Josie what she wanted, and take what I wanted. But I didn't, and I blew a raspberry instead, making her chuckle some more.

"Come on, babe," I said. "Let's get some food. I'm sure the ladies would be interested to hear about Chris and maybe watch some of his matches with you. They were worried as hell."

Josie sniffed and wiped under her eyes, then kissed me again as she sat up. "Thanks, Harrison," she said quietly.

"Whatever you need," I said, rubbing her arm comfortingly.

She got herself cleaned up and dressed in some comfy sweats before we headed down to get dinner, and soon she was getting passed from hug to hug until she was sat down in the cafeteria and Ivy and Spencer planted Macho in her lap, who brought a little smile to Josie's face as he wiggled half his body he wagged his tail so hard.

The smile wasn't much, but it was enough. Surrounded by friends, surrounded by support and love, we could make it through.

====================================

Threat: Every time someone complains about politics in the comments of this chapter, it pushes back the release of the next chapter by an extra week. This is a fictional story about fictional characters with an array of beliefs AND things they don't care about. They aren't going to match your personal political beliefs. Suck it up.

Thanks for reading! Votes are appreciated, and comments are even better.

Quaranteam: North West is an ongoing series that will continue to see updates moving forward. If you have enjoyed the series so far, definitely make sure to check out CorruptingPower's main series and other spinoffs. For similar Harem-y themes, you might want to check out my other series currently releasing.

Cheers!

~Break.

====================================